The architect-owner of this long-vacant home at 11 Nixon Ave., has been unresponsive to neighbors' concerns about the dilapidated state of the property. Staten Island Advance/Virginia N. Sherry

WARD HILL - Native Staten Islander Michael D. Flynn, an architect with an impressive track record at the Manhattan-based firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, where he has worked since 1962, enjoying partner status since 1989, has been striking out with homeowners on Ward Hill who describe his vacant, boarded-up property at 11 Nixon Ave. as a long-standing "blight" in the neighborhood.

The city Department of Finance lists Mr. and Mrs. Michael D. Flynn, with a mailing address on Silver Lake Road in Brighton Heights, as owners of the house, which sits on a lot measuring 53- by 99-feet.

The city Department of Buildings inspected the unkempt, dilapidated property four times in 2012 and this year, most recently on Feb. 15, in response to a complaint received two days earlier, said agency spokesperson Gloria Chin on April 3. The owners have amassed three Environmental Control Board (ECB) violations, totaling $10,250 in fines, for failure to maintain the property and failure to comply with the Commissioner's orders to file a certificate of correction, she noted.

Experienced architect

Michael D. Flynn's "principal activity is oversight of the building envelope and exposed structures," his architectural firm states, and he "also serves as management partner for certain projects."

Current projects
"Mr. Flynn has been principally responsible for many, and after 1989, all of the firm's building enclosures, comprising more than 100 executed projects around the world," the description continues, listing some of his current projects as office towers in California; an office building in Washington, D.C.; corporate headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, a business school campus in Shanghai, and a residential tower in Taipei."

Additional duties
"Mr. Flynn contributes to the development of codes and standards related to the design of the building envelope," and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

SOURCE: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners website

The house is a "ruin" and a "disgrace," charged Shaun O'Connell, president of the Ward Nixon Association, a civic group with 60 member households on Ward and Nixon avenues.

"For the past 18 years, Mr. Flynn's 11 Nixon Ave. property has been neglected and abandoned," the civic said in a statement to the Advance. "Its current state of disrepair is a bane to our otherwise beautiful neighborhood," and the building "has evolved into a fire, health, safety, and even crime hazard. Furthermore, it has devalued nearby properties of our neighbors."

"Fifty-five members of the civic signed a petition that was mailed, certified, to Mr. Flynn in an effort to resolve the issue. While we know he received it, unfortunately he never answered it, or our follow-up emails concerning it," the group reported. "We feel that 11 Nixon Ave. is a quality of life issue which negatively and needlessly impacts our community. We feel that airing our issue publicly is the right thing to do at this point.

"Our intent is not now and has never been to embarrass Mr. Flynn. While the irony of Mr. Flynn being a partner in a prestigious architectural firm is not lost to us, we have never attempted to communicate our issue, and our frustration concerning it, in anything but a positive and neighborly manner to him.

"Mr. Flynn remains absolutely deaf to proactive outreaches. After 18 years, he should finally do the right thing by our community, his former neighbors," the civic stated.